Sorry it's been so long since I've added anything here that wasn't a malicious and ham-handed attempt to trick you into watching my buddy Rick swear that he's never going to give you up. Warning you in advance, I think 4.5 days in Eastern Europe has already begun to affect my English -- with every passing day I slip more into the English-is-my-fifth-language-pidgin that is so common in these parts.
Long story short: the apartment I had found via Craigslist was, in fact, too good to be true (it's embarasing; I don't want to go into it), so I showed up in Budapest Wednesday afternoon homeless. Fortune was on my side and I managed to lug my crap (more than my body weight in luggage -- it all seemed necessary at the time) around the corner to a hole-in-the-wall bar/internet cafe, where the three middle-aged men patronizing the establishment at three p.m. got a friendly laugh at my expense.
I found a hostel where I stayed for two nights, accompanied by the random anglophone human detritus that tends to cluster in such places. My companions were two Australian professional-traveler types, one of whom has the Southern Cross tattooed under his right arm ("Never get tattoos when you're drunk."), two Brittish girls who must have been in their late teens, and a Hungarian who had grown up in Germany and who played online chess in the common room.
That was followed by two nights at the flat of a fellow Fulbrighter and two days of apartment hunting followed by an impulsive decision this morning to take the fourth place I looked at. I'm worried -- not least of all because I made this decision based on my other decision to room with a Mexican women (also a student) who I met via Craigslist and know only through email -- and probably will not feel okay until my life settles down in the next two weeks or so.
Things are stressful, to say the least. Tomorrow I meet with my university contact, plan my classes and haggle my tuition (finally playing the "only staying for a year card" I've kept to myself until this point). I also have to call two people and explain that I'm no longer looking for apartments. Tuesday Fulbright orientation starts, meaning I'll be occupied and incommunicado for 12+ hours a day. Sunday my roommate comes; I went ahead and closed on an apartment without her 110% support, so I hope she'll like it as much as I did. Real classes start for me the following Monday. It doesn't help that the internet in my place isn't up and running yet, or that I just forked over 60% of my month's stipend as a deposite. I hope everything sorts itself out.
